


If It Makes You Feel Much Better

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Play Along [4]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: F/M, M/M, band au, musician au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-05-25
Packaged: 2018-06-10 14:39:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6961054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Any, Band AU"</p><p>Dave notices his little brother is happier now that he's back with the Space Monkeys.</p><p>Title from the Tyler Hilton sing <i>Kicking My Heels</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If It Makes You Feel Much Better

John was happy. John hadn’t been genuinely happy since - well, he’d had his moments. Dave had heard about it at school all the time, the way girls sighed over his little brother’s smile. But John had become a different person after Mom died. They all had, shifting to try to patch over the hole where she’d once been. Dad had become more  _Patrick Sheppard_ , putting in longer hours at the office, being bigger and bolder and braver with the company. It had paid off, but Dave was pretty sure he hadn’t seen his real father in years, only seen the caricature left behind by Amelia Sheppard’s death.  
  
Dave had stepped up to assume the mantle of the Sheppard Heir, had had to swallow down the hurt and loneliness to become his father’s right-hand man at business dinners and fundraisers and other functions. And John had just become - quiet. He’d put his head down and stared at his shoes (until Dad issued a sharp “Look at me when I’m speaking to you!”) and did what he was told. _Quit the band. Do well in school._ He'd joined the track team, because that looked good for college. He’d signed up with the Air Force JROTC, which Dad had been less than pleased about, because John didn’t need either an athletic or military scholarship to go to college. And he’d gotten a spark in his eyes about it, looked pleased, carried himself a little taller when he came home with his uniform on.  
  
And then he’d blown out his knee, spent the summer after graduation in a cast and on crutches, and trundled off to college with the rest, still his quiet self, with that shadowed look in his eyes.  
  
But now he was happy, and it was because he was back with Teyla and Ronon and Jennifer in their band, the Space Monkeys. He’d kept up with Teyla and Ronon because they were both on the track team, Ronon a sprinter and a shot-putter, Teyla a javelin thrower and hurdles runner, but he’d abandoned his music - except for dabbling on his acoustic guitar - and not spoken to Jennifer.  
  
Or her boyfriend, Rodney.  
  
John went to band practice every night after work and came home glowing. He didn’t grin outright, not like he used to, but there was a light in his eyes.  
  
Dad noticed eventually, after John and his band had been playing regular gigs for a month. He completely misread the situation.  
  
“So, you’re finally settling in down at reception are you?” Dad asked over Sunday dinner.  
  
John blinked, lifted his head. “Sir?”  
  
“I’ve noticed you seem more - upbeat.” Dad sliced his steak neatly into small square pieces.  
  
“I am settling in with Chuck and Marie,” John said cautiously.  
  
Dad peered at him. Then he said, “Betty says you’re seeing someone.”  
  
John’s eyes went wide. “Pardon?”  
  
“Her name is Meredith,” Dave said.  
  
John cast him a look that clearly said, _What are you doing?_  
  
Dad raised his eyebrows. “Do tell.”  
  
“She’s blonde and has blue eyes,” Dave said. “She plays the piano. She’s very intelligent. Physics, she’s majoring in, is it? Or is it engineering?”  
  
John caught on quickly. “Both, actually. Double-major.”  
  
“You’ll have to bring her around sometime, for dinner,” Dad said.  
  
“She’s incredibly busy,” Dave said. “Given her academic schedule.”  
  
“Even in the summer?”  
  
“Even in the summer,” John said, casting Dave another look, this one mingled gratitude and consternation.  
  
“Well,” Dad said, “if you’re serious about her, and she’s suitable, I’d like to meet her.”  
  
“Oh, she’s suitable,” Dave said, and Dad totally missed the innuendo. The man could catch wind of a stock hitch in Nagoya but not notice when his sons were messing with him. Mom would have known in a heartbeat.  
  
After dinner, John headed up to his room, likely to practice more songs on his guitar. Dave caught him on the stairs, well out of earshot of Dad’s office.  
  
“Are you insane?” John hissed. “ _Meredith?_ ”

“That’s Rodney’s real name, isn’t it?”  
  
John’s eyes went wide. “I - yes. But he and I aren’t - he’s dating Jennifer.”  
  
“You two have been pulling each other’s pigtails since ninth grade,” Dave said. “Everyone could see it.”  
  
“Not Jennifer,” John said. “She’s my friend. I wouldn’t -”  
  
“I know you wouldn’t. And Rodney didn’t see it either,” Dave said when he saw the panic rising in John’s eyes. “Just try to keep a lid on it, okay, Johnny Cash?”  
  
“Okay,” John said, and headed to his room.  
  
Dave knew why it was hard for John to keep a lid on it, though. He went to as many of John’s gigs as he could, usually with Kathy in tow, because she was in a ‘slumming it’ phase and liked going to bars where no one drank merlot and the floor was sticky with spilled beer and she could dance to Super Bass and Poker Face and call Dave her White Boy when they danced close and moved their hips to Wild Cherry. When John was on stage, strumming his guitar and basking under the lights, he was a whole different person. He was alive. He was crackling energy and those grins the girls at school sighed over. Dave had missed this John, had underestimated how much music had mattered to him, and he was glad that John was back.  
  
And then he spotted the small, bald, bespectacled man who sat at a table in the corner with other men wearing suits, buying them drinks and watching the band intently, and he wondered if he was going to lose his brother yet again.


End file.
